By: Lin & Don Donn http://africa.mrdonn.org/slavetrade.html
1
The Slave Trade
Between 1450 and the late 1800's it is estimated that between 10-15 million Africans were kidnapped
and sold into slavery.
The expanding European empires in the New World, in North, South, and Central America lacked a
major resource - workers. At first the European colonists attempted to use Native Americans as a work
force, but that did not work very well. Native Americans could slip away, and return with others to
punish those who tried to enslave them.
The early colonists tried to bring people from Europe to work in the New World, both as indentured
servants and as slaves. That did not work well either, especially in the tropical regions. The Europeans
were not used to a tropical climate. Many died of disease. Some ran away and blended with other early
colonists.
The Portuguese soon discovered that Africans were excellent workers. They were used to more
tropical climate conditions. The African people did not want to be slaves. They had to be captured and
forced into slavery. A business sprang up - slavers. These were traders who captured and sold people
into slavery.
Many of the captured Africans died on the ships sailing to the New World. Conditions were terrible.
People were packed into the holds of ships without regard to their safety or their most basic needs.
Many died of starvation and disease on the journey. The slaves who made it alive were strong workers
and resistant to disease.
The Slave Trade was incredibly profitable and incredibly cruel. It ripped families apart. In Africa,
people would come home from a hunt or from the fields and find their families missing. In some cases,
entire villages were captured and traded as slaves.
For over 300 years, slaves were captured along the west coast of Africa, often with the active help of
African kings and merchants who were paid well for their cooperation. The African kings would
often raid other villages, take prisoners and sell them to the slavers, who would give the kings and
merchants beads, textiles, brandy, horses, and guns from Europe. Slavery was illegal in the United
States after the Civil War, but slaves continued to be traded in Central and South America for another
40 years until finally slavery was declared illegal in Central and South America as well.
The early days of the American economy were filled with trade routes stretching across the Atlantic in
seemingly all directions. As with trade between European countries, the goods coming into and out of
America tended to be part of a pattern. The money paid for one set of goods would be used to pay for
another set of goods, and so on. Also at this time, goods were traded for each other, in a barter
system.
In early American settlements, goods came from two main sources: England and Africa. This came to
be known as Triangular Trade.
A typical shipment of goods from Great Britain would consist of items such as beads, cloth, hardware,
rum, salt, or weapons. This shipment would go to Africa, where the goods would be traded for people
who were enslaved.
By: Lin & Don Donn http://africa.mrdonn.org/slavetrade.html
2
A ship leaving Africa for America would contain hundreds of enslaved people, tightly packed in
horrific conditions for the journey to their new "home."
Figure 1 - Slaves packed into the hold of a ship
Once in America, the ship would unload the slaves and take on any or all of molasses, rum, sugar, or
tobacco and then head to Great Britain, complete the Triangle. (It should be said here that not all ships
made this giant triangular trip. Many ships did no more than sail back and forth from America to
Africa and vice versa or from England to Africa and vice versa. The description of the Triangular
Trade deals more with the goods as a whole.)
Some of the ships coming to America sailed straight to ports along the Eastern Seaboard, although
some stopped in the Caribbean or Brazil, where large slave plantations were. These plantations grew
sugar cane and shipped it to the American colonies where it was refined. A by-product of refining
sugar is molasses. The molasses was used in the colonies to make rum, which was then shipped back
to Europe.
The number of Africans shipped as slaves to America has been conservatively estimated at 10 million.
That number doesn't include the thousands who died along the way. Some estimates have concluded
that 15 to 25 of every 100 Africans died on those voyages. The practice of slavery had a history of
hundreds of years. It was made illegal in America in 1807, although it continued in small part for
many years after that.
By: Lin & Don Donn http://africa.mrdonn.org/slavetrade.html
3
Questions:
1. Write what you think each of the following words mean, and write down EXACT QUOTES
from the text that show how the meaning is hinted at.
a. Empire
b. Indentured
c. Hold
d. Merchant
e. Barter
f. Horrific
2. Give two supporting details (EXACT QUOTES from the text) that go with this main idea in
the 5th paragraph: “Conditions were terrible.”
1.
2.
3. Cite the single main idea that ties these two supporting details together in the 3rd paragraph.
(EXACT QUOTE from the text):
a. The Europeans were not used to a tropical climate.
b. Some ran away and blended with other early colonists.
Main Idea:
4. According to the text, why did Africans make better slaves than Native Americans or
Europeans? Support your answer with 2 examples (DIRECT QUOTES) from the text.
5. How does the image labeled Figure 1 give more information than the text in the paragraph
before it at the top of page 2? Support your answer with 1 example (DIRECT QUOTES)
from the text.
By: Lin & Don Donn http://africa.mrdonn.org/slavetrade.html
4
On this map, please diagram the Triangular Trade. Use colored pencils and be sure to show the different products and their routes. In
Chains, re-read the end of page 25 and label Guinea and Jamaica.